Light into Darkness

It has been a year since I wrote my previous post as I was being smothered by the dark cloud.

That dark cloud dissipated for a little while and for about three months I lived in the glory of sunshine.  It warmed my soul and made my heart sing and for once in a long, long time, I felt human.
I was a wife again. A friend. A daughter and more importantly, a mommy. I was able to divulge in my passion for storytelling and glory in life.

I believed that the dark cloud would be gone forever, that the roller coaster ride I was on was finally stopped.

Not even close.
It was merely on pause.
In a series of personal tragedies that soon overwhelmed me, the dark cloud soon was smothering me and the ride was sending me on so many ups and downs that I was left screaming for a Gravol.
In the midst of this an old friend came calling to help me cope with the darkness of my depression.
This friend did not want to help me find a light, he wanted to hold my hand and plunge me further, whispering in my ear... "Just one slice, the blood will release your pain." I remember the first time I held that sharp silver fiend and held it to my wrist and pressed it to my vein. It took a long time for me to put that knife back into its home. Now, somehow, that silver has found its way back into my hand. I struggle everyday not to slide it across my skin, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail.

My favorite metaphor for how I feel goes something like this. I am standing in a room full of people, screaming at the top of my lungs and no one hears me. That pretty much sums it up on how I feel daily.
I am screaming, but they are silent. I need to cry, but I am forced to slap on a happy face and joke to mask the ugliness of my pain, my darkness.

I thought I was alone in this journey until, by chance, or by God's will a kind gentlemen that I never knew held out his hand to me and invited me to join his little support group. A group he formed for fellow authors. The Author Social Media Support Group or ASMSG has been a life-saver.
I have found that through this past year, not only does this group support each other with the craft of storytelling, by giving advice, helping promote each other's work, but they have been a invaluable shoulder to cry and lean on for all aspects of person's life.
They have helped me through many storms and I will never be able to repay them.

Just like I never be able to thank Grey Hoover for the invitation that has become invaluable to me.

They are not just my colleagues, but my family. The only contact I have to the outside world right now.

Yes, I am still plunged in darkness, but I will come out someday knowing that there is a big bright light waiting for me.  

Follow @TinaTraverse1

To hell and back and to hell again and again....

It has been a long time since I wrote anything but that is because I just came out of the two longest weeks of living hell. This roller coaster ride is making so nauseous that I am begging for Gravol.
The yelling, the screaming and the flashing of the knife to the inside of my wrist came raging back with a vengeance. In the space of two days my wrists have suffered the marks of a red angry blade 4 times.
As hard as those two weeks were the hardest most horrific journey came on Easter Sunday where I had spent the entire day putting on a happy, peaceful face for my family while inside I was screaming and filled with mental and emotional torment; that left me so mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted that I ended up on the floor, screeching like a madman, my head in my hands and a knife on the floor next to me. So exhausted and so drained that it continued on into the next day when I saw my therapist.
I have since climbed out of my deep dark place and put away the blade, for now. In place was a week full of physical pain, but the roller coaster ride is not yet over.
It is merely on pause.

Light in the darkness....whenever

I can not hear my own thoughts today, I have many things screaming in my ear.
First, that extra large cafe mocha from tim's is calling my name. Two, the mini cheesecakes I scarfed down last night are haunting me. Third the bottle of Lamb's in the cupboard is just begging to be drank.
Four, for the first time in a long time, the shiny reflection of my sharp little friend wishes to visit the inside of my arm.
I am fighting all of them, struggling to keep them silent, but it is getting harder and I am very tired.
It is like Stefan Salvatore fighting his true nature when he craves human blood....
Oh God, there I go again. I have been become so immersed in the Vampire Diaries between the books, tv show and my own fan fiction expanding 9 stories in various stages, crowding my mind.
I know most people celebrate creativity, and I love my creativity, normally. However, for whatever reason my writing gift has morphed into some kind of monster devourer eating up my waking thoughts, and sometimes my sleeping thoughts.
I often came up with 2 to 3 stories at the one time, writing each one individually, never starting a new one until the prior one is finished.
Now, I am trying to balance out 9!
My passion is a two faced beast.
On the one side, my passion calms my nerves, relieves my stress, and staves of my cravings for things that are not healthy for me.
On the other side, my passion devours me, and is slowly driving me insane.
Fantasy is lovely, but not when it consumes your life.
I take care of my family, my husband and my two young sons everyday, as normally as I am expected to be, pretending to be normal, pretending to completely in this world when I am really in, and all I wish to be in is in Mystic Falls, as my character Desiree Fitzpatrick, the most powerful being on earth, with Stefan and Damon Salvatore.
I just finished the last Stefan Diaries book and I have yet to pull myself out of his world.
Someone give me a hand?
I am so desperate.

Darkness and light....Day uh, I forget

I am so sorry it has been so long since my last posting...hey is there any body out there? HELLO! Nothing? Okay, well, moving on then.
I could not write as I fell into a deep dark abyss and I have just barely climbed out.
My shiny silver friend came to visit me again and this time around the calm only lasted for a short brief moment.
I am however, still screaming, yelling into the night afloat in the middle of the barren ocean with no one to  listen.
For one week anxiety attacks overwhelmed me, washing over me in tidal waves that threatened to drown me.
Another week I spent on a roller coaster ride so violent that I got sick.
This is where I remain.
I have been seeing a new therapist and although I only have one session with her with many more to come I am hopeful.

I just hopes this gets better soon.

Darkness and light day 6

Yesterday was one of the hardest days I have had in a long time so much so resorted to taking a knife and bringing it to my wrist, leaving several deep indentations all up and down my arm, I known if I had press just a little harder i would have broken skin. I guess that was what I was aiming for. I wanted to bleed, not to die, but to relieve the stress, frustration and heartache I was feeling. I am just thankful, now, that I am rational once more, that I did not cut my skin deeply or did my autistic son seen me. He is already confused about the change in me, which is very hard on him since his understanding of even the simple things is a struggle for him.  His brain can certainly wrap around his mother's strange behaviour. I am afraid that if he does catch me if I should ever use a knife again that he would think it was ok.
i pray that will never happen.
Today is not much better but at least there is no knife.

Darkness and light day five

I am going to let out a huge GRRRRRRRRRRRR because I am so furious about what I just read.
On Facebook I just seen another infuriating example of peoples pure ignorance to people who are overweight. I am so tired of people's nasty comments and so called funny jokes about us.  If these so called comments and jokes where aimed at other people, such as those of a different colour, religion or sexual orientation it would be highly offensive and these same people would be outraged; as they should be. But why is it okay to back and laugh or be mean to just because someone is overweight? Just as I believe that stereotypes and making fun of someone just because of their skin colour, faith or any other reason is really wrong because we should not judge someone based on one thing. We should take someone as the whole. How would these people like it if they were made fun of? We can not tell what someone is like, what someone has been through or the life that they live simply by looking at them.
I am an overweight person in the middle of a weight loss program and I do it not for anyone else but me. For my health and my well being. I am proud of my weight loss and will continue on my weight loss journey until I reach my healthy goal weight!
What also pisses me off big time is when the ignorant look at an overweight person and offer up stupid advice without any background on that person by saying stupid things like, That person needs to loose weight! Exercise, eat some fruit !! HOW IN THE NAME OF FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT THIS PERSON IS NOT ALREADY EATING HEALTHY AND EXERCISING REGULARLY?  There is such thing as a healthy overweight person. SKINNY DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN FIT!!!
STOP!!!!! STOP!!! STOP!!! Mind your own business and live your own lives.
Not everyone are meant to be toothpicks. Love your body no matter what your size.